KISS ME, COWBOY Read online

  * * *

  KISS ME COWBOY

  Maureen Child

  * * *

  * * *

  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  ^»

  Being a virgin wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

  But then, Nora Bailey was about to change all that, wasn't she? The question was, just who could she find to help her get rid of her chastity belt? Pickin's were slim, as they say.

  Staring out the gleaming front window of her bakery, Nora watched the citizens of Tesoro, California, enjoying a beautiful spring morning. With a calculating eye, she studied only the men walking along the crowded, narrow main street.

  First, she spotted Dewy Fontaine, ninety if he was a day, heading into the pharmacy across the street. He stopped to say hello to Dixon Hill, father of six, working on his third wife. Nora shuddered.

  Trevor Church raced by on his skateboard. Cute, but eighteen, for pity's sake. The kid popped a wheelie as he slipped around the corner and disappeared.

  Harrison DeLong, sixty and just a little too spry, stopped to shake hands and kiss babies. Running for mayor … again, and who trusts politicians?

  Mike Fallon. Nora sighed. Nope. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment or two as he strolled down the street toward the ice-cream parlor. Tall, he wore faded denims and a short-sleeved, dark red shirt. His boots were scuffed, his dark hair was ruffled in the breeze, and Nora knew, without even being able to see them, that his green eyes would be shuttered. Wary. Heck, the only female Mike trusted was his five-year-old daughter, Emily. Just then, the little girl raced up to her father and grabbed his hand with both of hers. Mike glanced down and gave his pretty daughter one of his rare yet breathtaking smiles.

  A darn shame that Mike wasn't in the running.

  "Wouldn't you know it?" she muttered. "I'm finally ready to 'do the deed' and there's no one left to do it with."

  Way back in high school, she'd made the decision to remain a virgin until she was married. At the time, it had seemed like the smart thing to do. But she hadn't counted on being the only twenty-eight-year-old virgin in the country, for crying out loud.

  She'd expected to graduate from college, find Mr. Right, get married and have babies. Pretty old-fashioned dreams, she supposed, in the grand scheme of things. But then, she'd been born and raised in Tesoro, a tiny coastal town in central California, where people still had bake sales to raise money for the school. Where neighbors looked out for one another and doors were mostly left unlocked.

  Where single men were now harder to find than a calorie-free chocolate chip cookie.

  So here she stood, eleven years after high school, as pure as the day she was born. The whole celibacy thing had really lost most of its shine. Nora had clung to her vow through the years, despite the fact that both of her younger sisters were married, with a baby each. She'd told herself repeatedly that the right man would come along. But honestly, she'd begun to doubt it lately. After all, she'd never been the kind of woman men lusted after.

  Her sisters were small and pretty. Nora was tall, too forthright for her own good and stubborn to boot. She was terrible at flirting, too honest to play games and too busy building her business to kill time at bars or dance clubs.

  But the kicker, the impetus to call this whole virginity thing off, had strolled into Nora's bakery only the day before. Becky Sloane was getting married. The kid Nora used to baby-sit had come in to order her wedding cake. A four-tiered, white chocolate number with pink and yellow roses. Becky – or rather her mother – was sparing no expense. At nineteen, Becky was on engagement number two, and Nora was willing to bet she hadn't said no to number one yet, either.

  And that's when Nora first wondered just who she'd been saving her virginity for. At the rate she was going, she would be able to be buried "intact" and her headstone could read Returned, Unopened. Depressing. Which was why she was now so determined to leave the ranks of the pure and unsullied behind.

  After all, just how much was a woman expected to take?

  Naturally, she'd talked her decision over with her best friend, Molly, over lunch yesterday, mentioning her encounter with Becky Sloane.

  "Becky Sloane?" Molly repeated, "I remember when the kid couldn't tie her shoe."

  "I know. So how old does that make us?"

  "God, how humiliating for you," Molly muttered, and took another long drink of the frosty concoction in front of her. "Becky's getting married and here you sit, as pure as the driven – whatever the heck that means – snow."

  "Gee, thanks," Nora said. "I feel so much better now."

  She winced. "Sorry." Green-eyed Molly Jackson's red hair was short and cut into a pixielike do with sharp edges and twisted curls that somehow looked great on her. Loyal to the bone, Molly was funny, impatient and creative enough to have launched her own greeting card company that she ran from her home. She also happened to be the mother of the world's cutest six month old girl and was married to the town sheriff, a man who absolutely adored her.

  "When's the wedding?" Molly asked.

  "Next week," Nora told her. "Saturday."

  Two red eyebrows arched. "That's fast."

  "Yes," Nora said, and twirled her straw through the slushy drink in front of her. "And honestly, Becky didn't look so good. A little green around the gills."

  "Hmm. So maybe there's a reason for the big hurry, huh?"

  "I don't know," Nora said. "But if Becky is pregnant, then that puts her way ahead of me, doesn't it?"

  Molly smiled and shook her head. "This is a contest, then?"

  "No." Nora sighed and leaned back in her seat. "It's just that I used to baby-sit her and now she's starting out on her life while I…"

  "Bake a mean cinnamon roll?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, you know how much I love to say 'I told you so,'" Molly said. "But I won't this time. All I will say is it's past time that you did something about this, Nora. You know darn well that most men avoid virgins like the plague. They figure virgins are too romantic. Too willing to build picket fences around a man."

  "True."

  So to find Mr. Right – if he existed – she needed to be rid of the whole virgin thing. Surely an experienced woman would have better luck.

  From the back of the bar, an old jukebox blasted out sixties tunes. Along one wall, a row of booths with scarred red vinyl seats marched in a line. Each table held a candle covered by red plastic netting that was supposed to have added atmosphere. But, over the years, the patrons had peeled away so much of the netting that now the candles simply looked like they had acne.

  She and Molly sat at a table on the far side of the room, hidden by the shadows and practically covered by the silk vines of trailing ivy plants hanging from pots overhead. A few regulars were sitting on stools at the bar while couples occupied the booths and snuggled in close together.

  Nora sighed, tore her gaze away from the most amorous couple in the bunch and looked seriously at her friend. "What I have to do then is become an ex-virgin."

  "Haven't I been saying that for the last five years?"

  "You said no 'I told you so's.'"

  "My bad." Molly held up a hand as if taking an oath and swore solemnly, "I will never again point out to you that you took so long coming to the conclusion that single, unattached males in Tesoro are almost extinct. Still, you're better off shopping at home. Who knows what kind of man you'd find in the city?"

  Nora had to smile. If there was one thing in her life she could count on, it was Molly being absolutely honest with her. Even when she didn't want to hear it.

  "Well, I feel better."

  "You will," Molly promised as she finished o
ff her margarita. "As soon as you get past this one little roadblock."

  "Little?"

  "Okay not so little. But we'll find you a man. You wait and see. I mean, it's not as if you're an old maid or something. Not yet, anyway."

  Nora shivered. There was a horrible thought. She got an instant mental image of herself, forty years from now, living alone except for the dozen cats crawling all over her doily-covered furniture. Nope. That's not the life she wanted. She wanted a family. She wanted love. And it was high time she went out and started looking for it.

  "I can do this, right?"

  "Absolutely."

  But before Nora could relax a little, Molly asked, "What's the time limit on this?"

  "Time limit?"

  Molly nodded. "I know you, Nora. If given half a chance, you'll talk yourself out of it. If we don't set a timer on this, you won't get moving. You'll end up sitting back and waiting for Mr. Right again."

  "Do you really think there is a Mr. Right?" Nora asked quietly. She'd always believed there was someone for everyone. The older she got, though, the less likely that theory looked.

  "Yeah," Molly said after a couple of minutes' thought. "I do." The soft smile on her face forced a tiny pang of – not jealousy, because Nora would never begrudge her best friend the happiness she'd found with Jeff – but maybe a little envy.

  "How is your Mr. Right, anyway?"

  Molly grinned. "Terrific. He's watching the baby down at the office." She checked her watch then and gulped. "And I'd better get down there and rescue him so he can get back to business. But before I go … time limit?"

  "How do I know how long it'll take?"

  "Uh-huh. How about three months?"

  Nora thought about it. Could she really do this? Set herself out to trap some guy into helping her rid herself of what she'd come to think of as an albatross hanging from her neck? And if she didn't do it? Then what? Start shopping for cats? Oh, no. "Okay. Three months."

  "Atta girl." Molly grinned. "Before you know it, you'll be living happily ever after, Nor. You wait and see."

  A timer went off, ending Nora's thoughts about yesterday's conversation with Molly and bringing her back to the moment at hand. Hurrying through the swinging door into the kitchen, she snatched up a hot pad, yanked open the oven door and pulled out a tray of steaming cinnamon sticky buns.

  She smiled as she set them on the cooling tray, then in a smooth, practiced motion, slid the next baking pan into the oven. As the scent of toasted pecans and warm cinnamon filled the room, Nora leaned back against the marble mixing counter and looked around the room.

  Small but efficient, her little kitchen was outfitted with the very best equipment she could afford. She'd made a name for herself in Tesoro over the last few years. Her bakery was becoming so popular that she was even drawing customers in from Carmel and Monterey. Her business was thriving, she had a great little house just a block from the bakery and parents and two sisters she loved. All that was missing was a family of her own.

  And that was a gnawing, constant ache in the bottom of her heart.

  She'd always thought there would be time. During college, she'd been too focused on graduating to do much dating. And after graduation, she'd attended chef's school and pastry classes. Then she'd concentrated on opening her business. And once the bakery was open, it had taken every moment of her time to get it up and running and make it successful.

  Now that it was, she had time to notice what she was missing. The years had swept by so quickly, she hadn't realized that most of the women she'd grown up with were married and had children already. And as her biological clock – God, she hated that phrase – raced on, her time was running out. She didn't want to be forty and just starting her family. Yes, it worked for a lot of women, she knew that. It just wasn't what she'd wanted or expected her life to be.

  As much as she loved being Aunt Nora to her sisters' two little girls, it just wasn't enough. And if she was going to change the situation, she had to do something about it now.

  There was one bright spot in all this. Everyone for twenty miles around would be invited to Becky Sloane's wedding. Surely she'd be able to find at least one single, available male there.

  *

  "For heaven's sake Nora, when was the last time you had a manicure?"

  Nora snatched her hand free of her sister's and examined her less than perfect nails. "I've been busy. You know, working?"

  "Nobody's that busy," Jenny snapped. She grabbed her sister's hand again and, scowling, began to file.

  "What is up with your hair?" Frannie stared at her older sister in the mirror, her pale eyes reflecting an appalled fascination. "Have you been hacking at it with scissors again?"

  Nora flinched and lifted her free hand to defensively smooth down the rough edges of her so-called "hairdo." "I resent the word, hacking."

  "As a beautician, I resent what you did to your hair."

  Her sisters. Nora sighed and looked at them. Petite and blond, the two of them looked like cheerleader bookends. Jenny and Frannie, at 24 and 23 respectively, had each married their high school sweethearts and were blissfully happy. Nora didn't begrudge either of them. But, as their older sister, she wouldn't mind having a little bliss herself. As close as twins, her sisters had always been a twosome. Pretty, popular and confident, they'd had the males of Tesoro eating out of their hands since kindergarten.

  Now, Nora had never had any problem with self-confidence, either, but she'd always been more comfortable playing a sport rather than standing on the sidelines shaking pom-poms. And while her sisters used charm to sway opinion, Nora was more likely to argue a point until her opponent was simply too worn down to care anymore.

  So why was she here in the tiny shop connected to Frannie's house, putting herself through this?

  Okay, Nora told herself, maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all. She'd thought that the fastest, easiest way to whip herself into shape was to go to her sisters for help. But was the torture worth the end result?

  "I can't believe you're finally letting me do your hair."

  "Just don't get crazy," Nora warned.

  Frannie snorted a laugh. "Don't panic. I promise not to introduce you to real style."

  "Funny."

  "Thanks."

  "I think we'll do acrylic nails on you," Jenny said, clearly disgusted. "Your own are hopeless and too far gone to be saved."

  Nora shot her a look. "Why not just cut my hands off?"

  "I should. They're so chapped, it's a disgrace."

  Okay, help was one thing. Sitting here being humiliated was another. Pushing herself up, Nora said, "That's it. I'm out of here."

  Frannie held her down and caught her gaze in the mirror. "We promise to stop picking on you, but I'm not letting you out of my shop with your hair like that. People will think I did it and my reputation will be shot."

  "That's not picking?"

  "Last dig, I swear."

  "Me, too." Jenny's gaze met Nora's in the mirror. "Stay, okay? We'll make you so gorgeous you'll outshine the bride."

  Nora eased back down, and as she did, the tension in the room dropped away and Frannie chuckled.

  "That won't be hard. From what I hear, morning sickness may have Becky hurling all the way down the aisle."

  "Her mother insists it's the flu," Jenny said.

  "Yeah, a nine-month virus."

  That comment sent Jenny off on more local gossip, and as her sisters' voices drifted around her, Nora closed her eyes and hoped to high heaven she'd recognize herself once her sisters were through working their "magic."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  Mike Fallon pulled at the dark blue necktie that was damn near strangling him and told himself that attending the wedding was good for business. In a town the size of Tesoro, it didn't pay to alienate any of your potential customers. Besides, he couldn't hide away on his ranch. He had Emily to think about. Whether he liked it or not, she would grow
up. And he didn't want her to he known as the "hermit's daughter."

  Though, God knew, if he had his choice, he'd just as soon stay out on the ranch as come into town and make small talk. But then, that was one of the reasons his ex-wife, Vicky, had divorced him, wasn't it?

  Don't go there, he silently warned himself. Don't start thinking about Vicky and the mistake that had been their marriage. Hell, wasn't he miserable enough? He took a sip of beer, leaned one shoulder against a flower-bedecked wall and, to distract himself, looked out over the crowd wandering around the country club's reception room.

  Almost instantly, his gaze locked on Nora Bailey. Now, there was a distraction.

  His gaze swept over her, from the top of her perfectly done hair, down to the curves hidden beneath her sexy little black dress and right to the tips of her three inch heels. When he'd first caught a glimpse of her in the church, he'd had to do a double take. This was a Nora he'd never seen before.

  He was used to seeing her standing behind her bakery counter, giving out free cookies to the kids and running her hands through hair that looked as though she'd taken her electric mixer to it.

  Tonight, she was different. Mike's hand tightened on the beer bottle, and when he took another drink, he had to force the icy liquid past the hard knot lodged in his throat. Damn, she looked good. Her honey-blond hair was shorter and danced around her face in a mass of loose curls. Her dark blue eyes looked somehow smokier, and her legs were displayed to awesome perfection. Who would have guessed that beneath her usual uniform of apron, jeans and T-shirt, she was hiding such an amazing figure?

  He watched her as she moved through the crowd, laughing, talking … drinking. Her steps a little unsteady, she tended to wobble, then catch herself as she moved toward him with the deliberately careful walk of a drunk trying to look sober. Frowning, Mike told himself it was none of his business if Nora wanted to have a few.

  "Room tilting?" he asked as she came closer.